


welcome home

by justbucky



Series: the nicky chronicles [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Everybody Lives, Modern AU, nicole velez, posthogwarts, shes back but thisll be longer, thats my girl!!!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-20 18:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14267043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbucky/pseuds/justbucky
Summary: when they graduate, they all move in together





	welcome home

“Promise me we’ll never leave.”

They were sprawled on the ground and each other, backs pressed into the earth, legs weaved together, eyes closed. Everything was sun soaked and faded, an old photograph waiting to happen. James was the one who had said it, an impulse, a fear, but also an ingrained need.

They’d have to leave the pitch in less than an hour, because the team had it booked for practise, and the school in less than a week, because they were graduating. It wasn’t something any of them liked to contemplate - _seven years to find a home, a week left to lose it_ \- but they’d accepted it. That wasn’t what he meant, and the rest of them knew it the same way they knew he had black hair and crooked glasses even when their eyes were closed.

“Promise,” Sirius said first, because James was more of a family to him than his real family had ever or would ever be.

“Promise,” Remus added, because they’d accepted him without question when others had shunned him unequivocally.

“Promise,” Peter echoed, because they were the only ones who had kept him from being achingly alone for years.

"Promise," Nicole repeated, because they were practically extensions of herself and she couldn't imagine life without them.

“Promise.” Lily finished, because this type of encompassing friendship was what she’d been missing for her whole life.

Nobody said another word, but something had just been decided, something important and heavy and real. Shadows from the hoops lay over their faces and arms and legs like ropes sent to hold them to each other. James shifted, his hand brushing against Lily’s, fire just under his skin, in her hair, burning behind his eyes. _This was everything. They were everything._

* * *

The rest of the year passed like a slideshow, snapshots of the best moments lining up next to each other in a glorious parade. And every moment was a best moment - how could it not be, when they had each other and themselves and the whole world open to them?

There was Lily laughing brightly as they exited the last exam and James laughing because Lily was. There was Pete, eyes wide, breath halting as they looked over their final grades and _he’d passed, he’d passed them all_. There was Sirius, sleepless on their last night, going up to the roof to look at the stars, and Nicky following him so that they could watch the sky together. There was Remus, happier than anyone had ever seen him, wearing his graduation robes, grinning and joyous because even after all the hurdles thrown in his way he’d made it, they all had.

They were kings on broken thrones, kings of broken homes. They were different models of the same impossible material, bound to each other through blood and bone. And they’d never leave each other (they’d promised, after all). They left the school the same way they’d left the pitch - hand in hand, all five of them, no shame and no looking back. People stared as they always would, talked as they always had: _did you see did you see?_ If people didn’t understand, maybe they didn’t deserve to. Kings could do what they pleased.  

* * *

“Please, Potter. I’m a king. Plus, I’ve got Moony here to keep me honest.” Sirius hung up the phone before James could respond, because he was impatient and rebellious and still himself. Remus, for his part, shot a resigned look at his friend.

“Phone calls cost money, Padfoot, don’t waste them trying to be punk rock.” Sirius stepped out of the booth, shutting the door behind him harder than was strictly necessary.

“Money, Remus, that we have and use exclusively for phone calls and for being punk rock whenever I so please.” He began to walk with great loping strides down the sidewalk, and Remus fell into step. “Also, I never have to try to be punk rock, I just am. And I resent any insinuation otherwise.”

Remus ignored this last comment. “Lily likes to buy plants and things from the market downtown and you know it, you’re just being a prick.” Remus hadn’t changed _much_ since graduation, but he had changed in every respect that was important. He was purely and essentially _himself_ more than he’d ever been, now that school and worry didn’t own parts of him. He was all daytime - sun kissed skin and caramel curls and eyes squinting softly into the sky. He spent his days in oversized sweaters and well-worn jeans, watering plants and learning how to be Remus J. Lupin, person, instead of Remus J. Lupin, secret keeper.  

“It doesn’t matter, Moony, because we’re _moving_. Or need I remind you what James sent us out to do?” He gestured up the street, at a sign that advertised an apartment for sale. Sirius had stayed the same in every respect that was important; that being his attitude, hair, and mode of transportation (sarcastic, fantastic, and motorbike, respectively). He was fuller and sharper all at once, a boy wrapped in an enigma wrapped in leather. If Remus was the day then Sirius was the night - dark, threatening, beautiful.

Remus gave up on this line of questioning, largely out of spite (he knew, as any friend of Sirius Black’s did, that Sirius enjoyed nothing more than a bout of verbal sparring) and instead switched tacks to the appointment they were about to attend. “Remember the rules, Pads?”

Sirius tossed the keys to his motorbike in the air, catching them carelessly on one finger. “Rule one: Sirius is in charge,” he quoted, as if reciting a commandment. Remus merely delivered a sharp poke to the taller boy’s side. “Ouch, Lupin, i know the bloody rules, leave it will you? I — fucking _ow_ Moony, alright alright!”

“The rules, Padfoot.” They drew up to the door, his fist poised to knock. Sirius heaved in the dramatic way he was fond of.

“Don't be stupid, don't screw with anyone, don't steal anything.” He counted them off on his fingers with exaggerated intensity. “You don't have to set me _rules_ like I’m some rebellious teenager.” (This was, of course, exactly what he was)

“Don’t be silly, Pads.” Remus rapped at the door. “You’re more like our misbehaving toddler.” And then a round Scottish lady showed the two of them up to their future third floor apartment, Sirius gasping and clutching at his heart all the while like he was a duchess having a stroke.

She asked their names first (“I’m the cool one and this is my good friend Wolfy McWolf”) and about their budget second. This one was slightly trickier, because the access they had to money was questionable at best. The Black family was obscenely wealthy, of course, but the problem was that they'd all rather eat slugs than acknowledge the existence of their oldest son. Sirius'd nicked quite a bit of cash on his way out, and always insisted he could "top it off" by burglarising his own family home if the need arose. It'd be more feasible to ask the Potters for money, but there was an unspoken agreement not to take advantage of their generosity. Nobody felt bad taking advantage of Orion and Walburga.

“What are you offering?” Remus asked finally, after the series of traded glances that had communicated all this information.

Less than an hour later, they owned a two-bedroom flat with a lovely view of a brick wall in a building crammed so close to so many others that they were practically leaning on each other. The windows were clouded, the ceilings high and unfinished, and the six of them were at home instantly.

* * *

The process of moving was complicated and obscure and altogether exactly how you’d expect them to do it.

Peter, who owned the least Things, combined them into a massive backpack and walked it to the new place, proud of his own ingenuity, before realising he had no keys and sitting outside the door for a good hour. Sirius put on all of his clothes at once, loaned Nicky a pair of sunglasses (“keep the mystery alive, Nic”) and drove the two of them over on his motorcycle looking like straight badasses who’d just gotten home from a trip to the tundra. Lily biked over one basketful at a time, while James tied everything he owned into a blanket and dragged it behind him on the street, looking furtively around as if he was hiding a body instead of moving house.

Once everyone got in – at last – Lily and Remus put out plants on the windowsills and hung patchwork curtains, Sirius tacked up posters and unfurled rugs, James threw things hodge-podge into the kitchen and Peter put up clotheslines with Nicky. They were in, truly in and truly home, by the end of the night.

Never was there a group so comfortable with one another. They all fell asleep in a wild unruly pile, a tangle of limbs and blankets, because they all loved each other more than anyone thought it was possible to love other people. They were a family of sorts, a family for those who were slightly distant from their own.

And when the sun rose and threatened to wake them up, Nic muttered a spell and it went dark enough to sleep until early afternoon.


End file.
